"They'll be safe from books and botany all their lives." (page 22)
Brave New World is definitely not the only work to allude
to Pavlov's experiment. In this episode of The Office, Jim conditions
Dwight to reach out and receive an Altoid each time the computer reboots.
By the end of the episode, it's Dwight's reflex to reach out each time he hears the noise.
Jim effectively uses Pavlov's theory to embarass Dwight.
The major allusion in chapter 2 of Brave New World dates back to Ivan Pavlov and his experiments with conditioned reflexes. Without the allusion to the Pavlov's Dogs experiement within the first few sentences of the chapter, I would probably still be terribly confused. The people in this strange Ford-worshipping factory/world train eight month old children by electrically shocking them; this seems a tad bit barbaric to me, but it sets up the principles of the Hatchery. These machine-bred children will be pychologically pushed away from books and flowers. Because of the allusion and how drastically it is practiced at the Hatchery, I am finally starting to understand how the 5 class system works. Although, I still don't understand the point quite yet. Are these defenseless Delta children are writhing in pain just because they got the short end of the stick? Are the Delta people being punished for a past action? I understand that they were born to be made into Deltas, but why? This Pavlovian experiment seems a bit harsh for children who did nothing to deserve such treatment, but the experiment in fits well with the general idea of extreme and odd practices in their world.
No comments:
Post a Comment